Texas man Jose Gomez who slashed face of child in knife attack on Asian family pleads guilty to hate crime
- Texas man pleads guilty to three hate-crime counts for knife attack on Myanmese family in 2020
- Man said he blamed China for the Covid-19 pandemic and mistook the family for Chinese
A Texas man has pleaded guilty to hate crime charges for attacking an Asian family, slashing open the face of a six-year-old child with a knife during the 2020 assault in a store.
The Midland man also punched the father of the child and attacked a Sam’s Club Warehouse employee because he wanted to kill the child and the worker was preventing him from doing so, authorities said.
Jose Gomez, 21, of Midland admitted that he believed the Asian family was responsible for the Covid-19 pandemic because he thought they were Chinese.
Gomez pleaded guilty to three counts of committing a hate crime. He faces man faces a maximum sentence of life in prison on each charge and a US$250,000 fine.
In court documents, Gomez admitted following the family into the store, taking a knife from a store display and slashing Bawi Cung, his six-year-old son and a store employee who tried to intervene.
Gomez said he blamed China for the Covid-19 pandemic and mistook the Myanmese family for Chinese. He said he perceived the family to be a “threat” as they were “from the country who started spreading that disease around”.
Cung was slashed in the face, while his son was slashed millimetres from his right eye to the back of his head, splitting his right ear. Sam’s Club employee Zach Owen was stabbed in the leg and slashed in the right palm.
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While being held down on the ground, Gomez yelled at the Asian family: “Get out of America!”
In an interview last year, Cung told Associated Press he could not walk through any store after the attack without constantly looking in all directions. His son, who now can’t move one eyebrow, is afraid to sleep alone. He said he was not sure what would have happened had Owen not intervened.
“Maybe I might kill him. Maybe he might kill all of my family. I don’t know,” Cung said. “God protected my family. God sent Zach to protect my family right there at the right time.”
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“An Asian family was shopping when the defendant brutally attacked them because of their race and because he blamed them for the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a Wednesday news release. “Racially motivated hate crimes targeting the Asian-American community are on the rise and have no place in our society today.”
Tribune News Service and Associated Press
